More Deaths, Poor Justice

September 5, 1985|By yellow

Happy hours are gone in many bars and restaurants. Police are out in force hunting for drunken drivers. Community groups -- students, paramedics, families of people killed by drunken drivers -- are speaking out. Yet the number of drunks causing traffic deaths is as bad as ever.

Police expect an average of three people a day to be killed by drunken drivers this year. This past holiday weekend 21 people died on state roads, adding to the 470 alcohol-related traffic deaths this year. That's an outrage.

It would be nice if there were some simple answer to turning the drunken- driving record around, such as throwing drunken drivers in jail the first time they get caught. But that's not the solution.

Look at what has happened in Colorado. It has a mandatory five-day jail sentence for first offenders. But the tough penalties passed in 1983 have had little effect. In 1983 there were 37,706 DUI arrests in Colorado. In 1984 there were 39,436. The number of drunken-driving deaths is up as well. There were almost twice as many in the first four months of this year as there were for the same period last year.

What's more important than throwing first offenders into jail is for Florida to get tougher on repeat offenders. The law is too easy on them.

A person convicted of three DUI charges in Florida faces a mandatory 30 days in jail and a maximum of a year. But a person convicted five, even 10 times faces the same sentence. Judges can't get tough on repeaters even if they want to. That's crazy. The law lets judges double the sentence for felons who are habitual offenders. The same should apply to drunken drivers.

Florida also needs to change the way it handles its DUI cases. In the past four years, Orange County cracked down on drunken drivers and increased arrests 154 percent -- the most in the state. But the number of judges, prosecutors and public defenders hasn't kept up. The system is clogged and delays mean that the deterrent effect of swift punishment is lost. What's more, to ease the crunch, traffic judges swap cases with other judges who have free time. Then comes the rush to find a prosecutor who isn't already in court. That's no way to run the courts.

One good alternative is for the Legislature to let hearing officers handle some minor traffic cases. That would free the traffic judges for DUI cases. The hearing officers also could handle arraignments -- the first court appearance for serious charges such as DUI. These can take half a traffic judge's time. A seasoned trial judge isn't needed to hear someone fight a speeding ticket.

There is still a frightening number of drunken drivers out there. The only way to get them off the roads is to get tough on repeaters and to find a better way of getting these cases handled swiftly.